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Wheel/Post Route Combo - Washington


AUEngineer2016

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People seemed to enjoy the Purdue play breakdown I did, so I thought I'd give it another go. This time, I'm taking a look at a play from the Washington game that won't show up on any highlight reels, but does show some clever play design and good execution all around.

Situation: 1st Quarter, 2:24 left. 2nd & 7 from our own 26 yard line. 

Pre-Snap

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Auburn is in "11" personnel here, with 1 H-Back (Chandler Cox) and 1 RB (Boobee Whitlow). Washington comes out in a 3-3-5 alignment that is shifted towards the short side of the field. 

A couple of things to notice from the defensive alignment right off the bat: 

  1. Ryan Davis (slot receiver, Short side of the field) appears to be covered by an OLB, which would provide a mismatch....
  2. ... if that OLB wasn't cheating inside, indicating he's coming on a blitz
  3. A safety is shadowed over Davis, further indicating a blitz from the right.
  4. The Nickel Back (#4, Wide side of the field) is in somewhat of a "no man's land". 
  5. Corners are giving a medium cushion
  6. All of the defenders are looking inside

There are several indicators here of Zone coverage, but more on this in a second.

Offensively, Auburn will run what's known as a "Post-Wheel Concept" to the short side of the field, and it will look like this:

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The play is designed to attack the right side of the field, and specifically is designed to isolate the Safety covering Davis. Safeties generally are not as good in 1-on-1 coverage as Corners, so Gus/Chip will attempt to exploit that coverage to their advantage. 

Let's start with the first thing the defense would see- the run fake. Just like the PA play in my last post, Auburn pulls the back-side guard here to show a Trap blocking scheme, such as the one in the play below:

Image result for football trap blocking diagram

Because linebackers will often watch the OL to determine where the play is going, this pull is designed to make them stop and wait rather than immediately drop into coverage. 

The fake itself is particularly clever, because it also takes advantage of the LBs reading Stidham. Hang with me here for a second- Stidham will be reading the play-side Safety, but the playside End is located directly in that line of sight. During the play fake, it will appear as if Stidham is reading the end due to the position of his head (which the LB will be watching) and theoretically should be an additional fake. 

Back to the defense - as it turns out they are running what's known as a "man-zone" coverage, something that is used extensively by the Jacksonville Jaguars. The idea with this type of coverage is that the play is designed as a Zone, however shortly after the play is snapped, the defenders are taught to find and stay with a man. The idea behind this type of coverage is that it should make covering rub routes easier, though it also requires near perfect execution to avoid a coverage bust.

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As it shakes out, Washington will play man-to-man coverage with the corners using a Bail technique on the receivers. Meanwhile, they will blitz 5 and drop the MLB and Nickel Back into a "hook" zone. 

Post Snap

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After the snap, you can already see the corners bailing- their assignment here is to prevent the deep pass and let the LBs and Nickel handle everything underneath. You can also see some of the offensive "cleverness" I talked about earlier, where Stidham is reading the Safety while making it look like he's reading the corner. At this point, there is no indication whether this is a run or a pass play, which is exactly what Auburn wants.

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By the time Stidham pulls the ball, the OL and backs have given him a solid pocket to step into. For his end of the bargain, Stidham has kept his eyes downfield even though he's sensing pressure off of the edge.

Once the Slot (Ryan Davis) made his cut to the boundary, the Safety committed and moved to cover him.

The Post hasn't yet made his cut in this image, but Stidham already knows it will be open. Why? 

  • With the MLB and Nickel still frozen because of the fake, there is now a 5+ yard void in the middle of the field.
  • The Corner that is covering the Post has his hips completely flipped and is running downfield full tilt
  • The Corner that is covering the Post has Outside leverage, but is leaving the inside wide open

All that's left to do is make an on-target throw

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If there was anything to nit-pick on this play, it's the pass protection from Boobee. He wasn't able to push the OLB wide enough, and allowed him to get pressure on Stidham, which forced an off-balance throw (Stidham had the room to make the pass, but felt the pressure and didn't fully follow through).

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Note- this blurry mess was the best image I could find. ESPN 60 FPS pls.

The off-balance throw from Stidham was behind his receiver (Seth Williams) who did an excellent job of finding the open space in the defense. Even better, he was able to make an adjustment and catch the bad pass for a positive play.

Takeaways

The route concept used in this play is extremely similar to the concept used on the TD pass to Boobee Whitlow in the bowl game, but both the formation and point of attack are different. Everyone on offense, from the OL and H-Back in protection to the RB on the run fake and the WR's routes to the QB's read was great, and it led to a 19 yard gain and a first down. More than that, this play is a "setup" play for a read-option from the same formation, because it causes the defense to think twice when they see a similar play. 

Grades:

OL: A+

HB: A+

RB: B

WR: A

QB: B+

Overall: A

Play at 50% Speed

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The playside corner's technique messed this one up for UW.  When he flips his hips, he should try and maintain a straight line. In this instance, he drifts towards the sideline. Why is this important? Because when the receiver begins to make his break, the corner has increased the cushion between them allowing for greater separation. Also once the receiver makes his break to the inside, the corner rounds off his pursuit angle slowing his closing. 

I teach the DBs that they need to "bite the hip" when the receiver makes their break. Meaning they need to attack the upfield hip of the receiver. If he had maintained his line and closed hard on the break rather than rounding it at the top, he would've been in-phase and much closer at making the PBU, especially with the poor throw.

Also, the deep safety should have seen that there was zero threat from the right and picked up the post much earlier. He was late 

 

Also, I'd give Boobie a C-.  He should know exactly who the threat is and where it's coming from. He should've been able to pick up the OLB at the LoS or better yet, cut him down. As is, he pressed the LoS a little too much and lost leverage over his man allowing him to disrupt the play.

Great analysis again.  

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28 minutes ago, bigbird said:

The playside corner's technique messed this one up for UW.  When he flips his hips, he should try and maintain a straight line. In this instance, he drifts towards the sideline. Why is this important? Because when the receiver begins to make his break, the corner has increased the cushion between them allowing for greater separation. Also once the receiver makes his break to the inside, the corner rounds off his pursuit angle slowing his closing.  

Agreed, corner messed this one up as well. My guess is that he was told to not let the receiver get outside since they were running a Cover 1, but in doing so he opens up the window for the post.

30 minutes ago, bigbird said:

I teach the DBs that they need to "bite the hip" when the receiver makes their break. Meaning they need to attack the upfield hip of the receiver. If he had maintained his line and closed hard on the break rather than rounding it at the top, he would've been in-phase and much closer at making the PBU, especially with the poor throw.

Agreed again, however that would have triggered option #3 for Jarrett, which is the hitch route on the back-side of the play. Since that corner also played a bail technique and was caught looking inside, the CB had no idea the receiver broke off his route and Slayton ended up being open by 5+ yards by the time the ball was thrown. 

33 minutes ago, bigbird said:

so, the deep safety should have seen that there was zero threat from the right and picked up the post much earlier. He was late 

Looking at the play, the first time we see the deep safety is him running downhill at Williams after he has already made the catch (Safety is at the 50, a 25 yard drop at least). It appears that UW was very concerned about our downfield passing game and was attempting to play this one more conservatively by trying to give us the underneath routes and hoping we'd be content to dink and dunk our way down the field. 

37 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Also, I'd give Boodie a C-.  He should know exactly who the threat is and where it's coming from. He should've been able to pick up the OLB at the LoS or better yet, cut him down. As is, he pressed the LoS a little too much and lost leverage over his man allowing him to disrupt the play.

That's fair. I graded him lighter because he was carrying out a play fake and did put himself in position, he just reached and didn't make a good block. He made the right read and picked up his man correctly, just made one move too far inside.

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41 minutes ago, AUEngineer2016 said:

 

Agreed again, however that would have triggered option #3 for Jarrett, which is the hitch route on the back-side of the play. Since that corner also played a bail technique and was caught looking inside, the CB had no idea the receiver broke off his route and Slayton ended up being open by 5+ yards by the time the ball was thrown. 

 

Oh yeah, the hitch was wide open!  If the play were defended better, that should have been the throw. He easily would've turned that into a 10-15 yard gain and with his speed maybe more.

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12 hours ago, Tigerpro2a said:

Nice break down. Very well executed play. So the read for the QB on this is the safety shadowing Davis?

That's the primary read, yes. Depending on how complicated we made this for the offense, it might also have been an RPO, but I think this was a called PA fake. 

Primary read is the safety- if he bites on the Wheel route, look at the Post. If he doesn't bite, hit the wheel route at 5 yard depth (you can see Davis turn to look for the ball here) with the ball placed towards the boundary where only Davis can get it.

Secondary read is the corner covering the Post- If he tries to undercut the Post route, Stidham can either 1) see if Davis has a step on the Safety and give him a shot down field or 2) check down to the hitch on the other side of the field.

Tertiary read is the corner on the hitch route. If he's got tight coverage, tuck it and run.

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3 hours ago, AUEngineer2016 said:

That's the primary read, yes. Depending on how complicated we made this for the offense, it might also have been an RPO, but I think this was a called PA fake. 

Primary read is the safety- if he bites on the Wheel route, look at the Post. If he doesn't bite, hit the wheel route at 5 yard depth (you can see Davis turn to look for the ball here) with the ball placed towards the boundary where only Davis can get it.

Secondary read is the corner covering the Post- If he tries to undercut the Post route, Stidham can either 1) see if Davis has a step on the Safety and give him a shot down field or 2) check down to the hitch on the other side of the field.

Tertiary read is the corner on the hitch route. If he's got tight coverage, tuck it and run.

I would agree that it is a PA fake based off of the fact that there was a lineman pulling to kick the edge.  Typically on an RPO you will have either straight zone blocking by everyone or if there is a puller they are  either:  1. Skip pulling for an inside LB on a Power Scheme or 2. Have a 2nd puller (H-back typically) on a Counter Scheme.

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1 minute ago, WarEagle1982 said:

I would agree that it is a PA fake based off of the fact that there was a lineman pulling to kick the edge.  Typically on an RPO you will have either straight zone blocking by everyone or if there is a puller they are  either:  1. Skip pulling for an inside LB on a Power Scheme or 2. Have a 2nd puller (H-back typically) on a Counter Scheme.

Also, your RB is coming off of the fake to help protect the edge.  Had it been an RPO he would have continued through the line and do what we call "running without the football" to hold LBs in the box.

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Good stuff. It looked like the safety wrapped up Davis as he turned up from the post and was forcing him OOB. That should've been a defensive holding call at the least even though the ball was thrown right before that. Still, great play call there. I really hope this kind of thing continues next season with Gus "officially" at the helm again.

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